The following is Part I to David DeGraw’s new book, “The Road Through
2012: Revolution or World War III.” This is the second installment to a
new seven-part series that we will be posting throughout the next few
weeks. You can read the introduction to the book here. To be notified via email of new postings from this series, subscribe here.

When
we analyze our current crisis, focusing on the past few years of
economic activity blinds us to the history and context that are vital to
understanding the root cause. What we have been experiencing is not
the result of an unforeseen economic crash that appeared out of the blue
with the collapse of the housing market. It was certainly not brought
on by people who bought homes they couldn’t afford. To frame this
crisis around a debate on economic theory misses the point entirely. To
even blame it on greedy bankers, while essentially accurate, also
misses the most vital point.

This crisis is the direct result of a strategic economic attack on the existence of a middle class and democracy worldwide. The stock market and economy have become weapons of mass oppression manipulated by an imperial banking cartel to impose order and exploit the masses. This crisis boldly represents the manifest evolution of the fascist spirit reasserting itself as the dominant ideology.

Any fairytale notions of the United States being a democratic republic built on the rule of law have been utterly dispelled.
As a nation we have been bred and conditioned to be dangerously naïve
to the darker forces which operate beyond the spotlight of the
mainstream media. We have been blinded to what has been developing
throughout the world.

The economic imperialism that has now blown-back to the United States and Europe
has been evolving for decades and can be directly traced back to the
end of World War II, to the birth of the CIA, International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and World Bank.

For those of us who have been paying attention to economic imperial
operations that have been carried out against countries throughout the
world, this looks all too familiar.
The IMF and global bankers have conquered the second and third world,
and they have now moved on to countries within the first world. Western
European and American working classes are in the cross-hairs now.

Economic and societal indicators, along with recent G-20 policy decisions, clearly demonstrate that they are carrying out and escalating systemic economic attacks throughout Europe and the US.

To put it in technical terms, the United States government has been taken over by a financial terrorism network.
They have bought off leaders of both the Republican and Democratic
parties, and have established a dominant role in all three branches of
government and throughout the mainstream media. They have complete
control of the economy, stock market, US Treasury, Federal Reserve,
World Bank, IMF and global banking system. Free market capitalism has collapsed; it’s now a rigged global market. This is an organized criminal operation, an imperial fascist movement that is determined to destroy our very way of life.

A war has already been launched against us.

In just the past three years we have lost an unprecedented amount of national wealth, trillions upon trillions
of our tax dollars have been looted by Wall Street, endless wars,
enormous subsidies for the most profitable global corporations and tax
cuts for the richest one percent of the population. Never before, in
the history of civilization, has a nation been so thoroughly and
systematically fleeced.

This is all the result of a coordinated economic attack by a global banking cartel against 99 percent of the US population.

Until we can become politically intelligent enough to see this as the
reality and root cause of our current crisis, we will not be able to
overcome it, our living standards will continue to decline and we will
all be sentenced to a slow death in a neo-feudal system built on debt
slavery.

The average American is horribly naïve to just how depraved, corrupt
and addicted to power this banking cartel is. Through their control
and domination of the mass media, they have kept their crimes against
humanity out of public consciousness. We have been shielded from the
global devastation and death toll that they have already wrought. The
result is an unsuspecting population of confused and passive people
having their future ripped out from under them, right before their eyes,
without any organized defense or resistance.

As the entrenched global banking cartel continues to control domestic
political policy, the next phase of this crisis will inevitably feature
an escalation into mass violence. As the Army War College stated, the
Pentagon is preparing for “violent, strategic dislocation inside the
United States” and “widespread civil violence” due to “purposeful
domestic resistance.”

In clear signs of what is to come,
rioting and violence as a result of economic turmoil has already been
experienced in many countries throughout the world. However, civil
unrest has not yet occurred within the United States. There are many
theories as to why there has been so little resistance from the US
population thus far, and several factors play into it. The most
significant factor is that social safety net programs have been vital in
preventing people from resorting to extreme measures. Currently, a
stunning number of Americans, 52 million, are receiving life-sustaining
assistance from government “anti-poverty” programs, such as food
stamps, unemployment benefits, Medicaid and Medicare. This has already
stretched a social safety net system that is designed to handle
significantly less people to its limit. This safety net system has now
been drained of all reserve resources over the past two years, and is
obviously not sustainable under current economic and political
conditions.

As social safety net programs have been drained of reserves, many US
citizens have also been burning through their personal savings. Over
the past few years the percentage of Americans living paycheck to
paycheck has dramatically increased. In 2007, 43 percent of Americans
were living paycheck to paycheck. In 2008, the percentage increased to
49 percent. In 2009, the number skyrocketed up to 61 percent. The most recent number for 2010 has exploded to a shocking77 percent. This means in our nation of 310 million citizens, 239 million
Americans are one setback away from economic ruin and millions more are
in danger of having to rely on government assistance for survival.

So as this prolonged economic crisis continues, these safety nets,
that are already overwhelmed, will have to support more and more people
and will inevitably break down. As we have just begun to see, budget
cuts to vital social programs on the state and federal levels will
become increasingly severe right at the point when many more Americans
will need them. As the 52 million Americans currently surviving in
“anti-poverty” programs are gradually cutoff from life-sustaining
government assistance - and as the 239 million people now living
paycheck to paycheck, buried in debt, stressing out and working their
asses off just to make ends meet realize that things are not going to be
getting any better — and are only going to get worse — social unrest
and outbursts of violence will eventually start to bubble up to the
surface and the ruling elite will no longer be able to maintain power by
simply deceiving the masses via mainstream media propaganda.

When an overwhelming majority of the population directly feels
negative effects upon their own living standards, the propaganda system
collapses. The illusion comes crashing down and people will finally
start to get wise to the horrific scam that is being played on them.
When they wake from their media-induced American dream state and realize
that they are now living in a nightmare, as crazy as it may sound,
people will actually stop voting against their own interests. The
apathetic majority, that doesn’t vote, will become active in the
interests of self-preservation as their survival instincts kick in.

The handwriting is on the wall and the ruling class has to realize
that by the time 2012 rolls around, their puppet politicians will be
voted out of office, or their heads will roll, quite literally.

Looking at this from a purely technocratic sociological viewpoint,
avoiding mass riots and violence while this many desperate people lose
life-sustaining programs appears to be an impossible task, and given our
current economic and political environment this seems inevitable.

“As people lose confidence in the ability of markets and
governments to solve the global crisis, they are likely to erupt into
violent protests or to assault others they deem responsible for their
plight, including government officials, plant managers, landlords,
immigrants, and ethnic minorities. (The list could, in the future, prove
long and unnerving.) If the present economic disaster turns into what
President Obama has referred to as a ‘lost decade,’ the result could be a
global landscape filled with economically-fueled upheavals.”

Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski expressed his fears:

“I was worrying about it because we’re going to have
millions and millions of unemployed, people really facing dire straits.
And we’re going to be having that for some period of time before things hopefully
improve. And at the same time there is public awareness of this
extraordinary wealth that was transferred to a few individuals at levels
without historical precedent in America….

And you sort of say to yourself: what’s going to happen in this
society when these people are without jobs, when their families hurt,
when they lose their homes, and so forth?”

Outbreaks of civil unrest are something that the US government and
Pentagon have been expecting, and preparing for. Former US Director of
National Intelligence Dennis Blair testified before the Senate
Intelligence Committee stating that the greatest threat facing the US is
not terrorism, it’s the current economic crisis:

“The primary near-term security concern of the United
States is the global economic crisis and its geopolitical implications.
The crisis has been ongoing…. Of course, all of us recall the dramatic
political consequences wrought by the economic turmoil of the 1920s and
1930s in Europe, the instability, and high levels of violent extremism.”

Intelligence Committee Vice-Chair Christopher Bond said the economic
crisis is now “the primary focus of the intelligence community.” As the
Army War College has warned, the response to this coming phase of the
economic crisis “might include use of military force against hostile
groups inside the United States. Further, DoD [the Department of
Defense] would be, by necessity, an essential enabling hub for the
continuity of political authority in a multi-state or nationwide civil
conflict or disturbance.”

“The specter of social unrest was raised at the US Army War College in November in a monograph titled ‘Known Unknowns: Unconventional ‘Strategic Shocks’ in Defense Strategy Development.’ …

The ‘widespread civil violence,’ the document said, ‘would force the
defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic
domestic order and human security.’

‘An American government and defense establishment lulled into
complacency by a long-secure domestic order would be forced to rapidly
divest some or most external security commitments in order to address
rapidly expanding human insecurity at home,’ it went on….

In plain English, something bureaucrats and the military seem
incapable of employing, this translates into the imposition of martial
law and a de facto government being run out of the Department of
Defense. They are considering it. So should you.”

The
International Monetary Fund is predicting a “social explosion” due to
this crisis. The IMF and World Bank have a long history of creating social upheaval. Leaked documents from within the World Bank refer to the next phase of the crisis as the “IMF riot.”

Journalist Greg Palast obtained classified planning documents,
which shed light on the covert economic imperial operations, Structural
Adjustment Programs, that the IMF, World Bank and US Treasury have used
in the past as a playbook for destabilizing and conquering foreign
nations. In the UK newspaper The Observer,
Palast interviewed Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who
was a former World Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice President, turned whistleblower.
They revealed the four-step IMF plan. Though the strategy is slightly
modified based on the nation being attacked, here in the United States
we are currently about to enter a variation of step-three, which is
currently being phased in throughout Europe. This step inevitably leads
to a significant portion of the population losing the ability to obtain
basic necessities essential for survival. Once this happens, riots
inevitably occur, or as they put it: step 3.5 is executed.

Here is how Palast and Stiglitz summed it up:

“At this point, according to Stiglitz, the IMF drags the
gasping nation to Step Three: market-based pricing - a fancy term for
raising prices on food, water and… gas.

The IMF riot is painfully predictable. When a nation is, ‘down and
out, [the IMF] squeezes the last drop of blood out of them. They turn up
the heat until, finally, the whole cauldron blows up,’…

What Stiglitz did not know is that Newsnight obtained several documents from inside the World Bank. In one, last year’s Interim Country Assistance Strategy for Ecuador, the Bank several times suggests - with cold accuracy - that the plans could be expected to spark ’social unrest’.”

To sum up, the interlocked IMF and World Bank set the conditions for
’social unrest’ and then once it occurs they move to step-four, which is
the ultimate in disaster capitalism - they profit off the misery and the civilian population is then buried in a neo-feudal system of severe debt and poverty.

So what is the IMF saying right now about our situation in Europe and the US? A recent Telegraph report reads:

“IMF fears ’social explosion’ from world jobs crisis

America and Europe face the worst jobs crisis since the 1930s and
risk ‘an explosion of social unrest’ unless they tread carefully, the
International Monetary Fund has warned….

Olivier Blanchard, the IMF’s chief economist, said the percentage of
workers laid off for long stints has been rising with each downturn for
decades but the figures have surged this time. ‘Long-term unemployment
is alarmingly high: in the US, half the unemployed have been out of work
for over six months, something we have not seen since the Great
Depression,” he said….

The IMF said there may be a link between rising inequality within
Western economies and deflating demand. Historians say the last time
that the wealth gap reached such skewed extremes was in 1928-1929…”

To show you how insidious the IMF is, they have recently launched a propaganda campaign to publicly decry deficit budget cuts and austerity measures. However, behind the scenes they have been forcing implementation of them and making their usual demands for cuts in vital social services and public spending, once those cuts are in place, the riots obviously follow.

“IMF issues broad call for US financial prudence
Cut Social Security. Ditch the deduction for interest on home mortgages. Tax gasoline.
The United States recently opened itself to the most intense scrutiny
yet by the International Monetary Fund, and on Thursday was offered a
bitter pill when the agency criticized some well-defended aspects of
American culture — cheap fuel, subsidized housing, and a government
retirement check…. “

“The central bankers and their accomplices at the IMF are
dictating policies to democratically elected governments. Their agenda
seems to be the same everywhere, cut back retirement benefits, reduce
public support for health care, weaken unions and make ordinary workers
take pay cuts.”

“The IMF program calls for cutbacks in government support
for healthcare, pensions, and a wide range of other public services. It
also calls for weakening labor market regulations that provide workers
with job security.

These recommendations are being given in a context where the world
economy is suffering from a massive shortfall of demand. In other words,
tens of millions of people are unemployed right now because there is
not enough spending to keep them employed. The IMF’s program is almost
certain to reduce spending further leading to even larger shortfalls in
demand and more unemployment….

The IMF’s track record gives us reason not only to question the
institution’s competence but also its motivations…. It is possible to
see a similar pattern in the IMF’s latest set of policy recommendations
to deal with the economic crisis.”

“Last week, the IMF told the United States that it needs
to start getting its budget deficit down. It put cutting Social Security
at the top of the steps that the country should take to achieve deficit
reduction. This one is more than a bit outrageous for two reasons…

While the IMF has no problem warning about retired workers getting
too much in Social Security benefits, it apparently could not find its
voice when the issue was the junk securities from Goldman Sachs or
Citigroup that helped to fuel the housing bubble.

The collapse of this bubble has not only sank the world economy, it
also destroyed most of the savings of the near retirees for whom the IMF
wants to cut Social Security. The vast majority of middle-income
retirees have most of their wealth in their home equity. This home
equity largely disappeared when the bubble burst.”

So the IMF and global banking cartel are setting the conditions for social unrest and pushing for policies that will provoke it, and the Pentagon is preparing for a military response. As scary and unbelievable as all this may sound, we are on a fast track to this scenario.

To Sum Up

The American and global economy have already been looted and
destroyed beyond repair. Most serious economists will admit that
governments have already exhausted their capital by bailing out the
banks and taking on unprecedented amounts of debt. The bailouts and
recent return to high profits were just the final phase of the looting
and a further consolidation of wealth on an unprecedented scale. There
are still tens of trillions of dollars in debt hidden off-the-books and hundreds of trillions
of dollars in dark pools of derivative liability. As the downturn
continues, there is nothing left to revive the economy, the reserves and
safety nets have already been stretched to their limits.

We have a political and economic system that has been overrun by
organized corruption and theft. Along with a mass media system that does
not inform the populace and has effectively marginalized and isolated
the majority of the population. Meanwhile, bubbling just under the
surface is a very heavily armed population with a militia movement that
has doubled in size over the past year, and their memberships continue
to rapidly grow. Without the necessary general political intelligence or
infrastructure to organize an effective mass non-violent movement, we are steamrolling toward spontaneous riots and outbursts of armed insurrection.

In other words, as this economic downturn continues, what is now a
passive and confused population will eventually devolve into an
explosion of violence. Without a coherent non-violent movement to
provide a viable alternative, without an outlet for severe and
legitimate grievances that provides any chance for urgently affecting
necessary political change, people will resort to violence as a last
desperate act of vengeance and frustration. As time passes, these
forgotten and isolated people, tens of millions of them, are
quickly running out of options, and they will act out just as exploited
people throughout the world always have.

A man who sparked a revolution against the same banking cartel that
has caused our crisis described the general attitude among a population
that successfully rebelled through armed insurrection:

“The people are weary of being oppressed, persecuted,
exploited to the maximum. They are weary of the wretched selling of
their labor-power day after day — faced with the fear of joining the
enormous mass of unemployed — so that the greatest profit can be wrung
from each human body, profit later squandered in the orgies of the
masters of capital….

The feeling of revolt will grow stronger every day among the peoples
subjected to various degrees of exploitation, and they will take up arms
to gain by force the rights which reason alone has not won them.”

Whatever your preconceptions of the man who said this may be, the
voice of Che Guevara can now be clearly understood and related to by the
overwhelming majority of people throughout the United States.

Already, despite intensive propaganda, a stunning 80 percent of the US population
believes that the government has failed them. The health care and
financial reform bills have proven that our politicians are much more
concerned about the short-sighted necessity to please the Economic Elite
and raise campaign funds, than they are to understand the consequences
of millions of Americans being forced into situations where their very
survival is threatened. In a system where most elected officials are millionaires,
this lack of perspective and understanding is ultimately what will lead
to violence. Whether it is by arrogance or ignorance, perhaps both, it
appears that our ruling class has suicidal tendencies. Unless they
quickly recognize the growing threat posed by the dispossessed masses, our puppet politicians will themselves be in harm’s way.

To show you how incredibly out of touch our current elected officials
are, and to give you a clear indication of the prevailing attitude on
Capitol Hill, a recent report from the Washington Post summed up their response to the recent news that a record number of Americans are now living in poverty:

“The reluctance of political leaders on both sides of the
aisle to directly confront the fact that growing numbers of Americans
are slipping into poverty reflects a stubborn reality about the poor:
They are not much of a political constituency.

‘We talk to many people on Capitol Hill who do believe poverty is
important and is a blight on our nation, but we are also up against a
general recognition that poor people don’t vote in great numbers. And
they certainly aren’t going to be making campaign contributions. That
definitely puts them behind many other people and interests when
decisions are being made around here.’”

And that sums up our current crisis, doesn’t it? The “poor people don’t vote” and they don’t make “campaign contributions.”

As the Rage Against the Machine song goes, “The riot be the rhyme of the unheard.”

How will this imperial fascist banking cartel respond to revolt? How
will they maintain their power over an increasingly radicalized and
hostile US population?

In an attempt to stave off organized rebellion, they are already
escalating their propaganda efforts in attempts to divide and distract
the population. The tactics of their divide and conquer strategy are
already on full display. Their mainstream media outlets have
drastically increased coverage and focused attention on the rhetoric of division
- using divisive issues like immigration, racism, religious bigotry,
the “lazy unemployed,” “entitlement welfare” and gay marriage to divide
and distract the population and prevent the masses from organizing
against their true oppressors.

This propaganda effort is only a temporary measure and will not
suffice over the long-term. As the economy continues to collapse, the
banking elite risk being overthrown as a result of their own greed. So
they will then turn to physical, military-based violence to suppress
populations that can no longer be controlled through propaganda and
economic coercion.

To paraphrase policy analyst Anatol Lieven, the classic strategy of
an endangered oligarchy is to divert discontent among the population
into nationalistic militarism. It is time, once again, to bang the drums of war
and “whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor.” The source of the
following quote is unknown, but the evident wisdom of it is something
that we have already experienced firsthand in the recent past:

“Beware the leader who bangs the drum of war in order to
whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a
double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the
mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the
blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no
need in seizing the rights of citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused
with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights
unto the leader and gladly so.”

An increased external threat will lead to an increased internal
crackdown, which creates the pretext and conditions for a police state.
As we have already seen in the first phase of the crackdown on civil
liberties since the “War on Terror” began, when rioting and outbursts of
armed insurrection begin within the US, external threats, real or
imagined, will again be presented to justify extreme measures to
suppress American citizens, and to further repress and divert internal
dissent. Without an external enemy to rally the population against, the
population will rally against the pre-existing internal powers.

To put a slight twist on what Guy DeBord insightfully said back in
1988: the banking cartel “constructs its own inconceivable foe,
terrorism. Its wish is to be judged by its enemies rather than by its
results. The story of terrorism is written by the state and it is
therefore highly instructive. But they must always know enough to
convince them that, compared with terrorism, everything else must be
acceptable, or in any case more rational and democratic.”

As
millions of Americans and the majority of the global population look
for vengeance on those responsible for severely declining living
standards, the global banking cartel are not going to blame themselves,
so they will deflect blame to China, a most convenient target.

As a result of the crisis, national currencies are reeling, and the
dollar, although currently one of the strongest paper currencies, is
losing power as the crisis escalates. The IMF is working to replace the
dollar as the world reserve currency and have begun discussing the
possibility of making their Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) the new world
reserve currency. A plummeting dollar will obviously put the American
population in a severely desperate situation and the US-based banking
cartel needs an excuse to divert political backlash. In China, the
nation poised to replace the US as the preeminent global superpower,
they have the perfect scapegoat.

US-based global corporations have been shifting their business to
China and off-shoring millions of jobs to the region due to their
extremely low worker wages. So the American population is already
pre-disposed to blaming China, as opposed to the companies who are
exploiting the cheap labor. US politicians have been conveniently
shifting blame for unemployment from themselves to China. Meanwhile,
China also owns a significant portion of US national debt. US Admiral
Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has recently
declared that the national debt is the number one security threat. As
Mullen stated,
“Tax payers will be paying around $600 billion in interest on the
national debt by 2012.” A significant portion of this interest will be
going to China.

As national governments attempt to survive in an increasingly hostile
global economy, trade and currency wars will flare up and escalate.
China is in perhaps the strongest position
to win these conflicts. China and Japan have just engaged in a fierce
currency battle. This currency battle is not to be underestimated. We
are talking about the world’s second and third largest economies, after
the United States. China has just overtaken Japan for the number two
position. The militant rhetoric
between these two nations is escalating. US politicians were quick to
jump on the situation with calls to classify China as a “currency
manipulator” and impose trade tariffs and penalties against them.

“The eruption of currency exchange conflicts is bound up
with mounting signs that the global economic crisis is systemic, rather
than merely conjunctural, and growing fears that a genuine recovery is
not in the offing. The European sovereign debt crisis and the weakening
of US economic growth have led governments around the world to seek to
secure a greater share of export markets. Under conditions of slowing
growth and stagnant markets, this inevitably heightens trade conflicts
between competing capitalist nations.

In particular, the US and the European Union, spearheaded by the
export power Germany, have aggressively pursued a cheap currency policy
in order to gain a trade advantage against their rivals. Of the major
economic powers, Japan has suffered the greatest damage from these
policies, as investors and speculators have shifted from dollar- and
euro-denominated investments to the yen, driving up the currency’s
exchange rate.

This has embittered relations between Japan and both the US and the
EU. Japan has also denounced China for artificially keeping its currency
low while bidding up the yen by increasing its purchases of Japanese
government securities.”

“In opening the Senate Banking Committee hearing,
Chairman Christopher Dodd declared China a currency manipulator and said
its ‘economic and trade policies’ present ‘roadblocks to our recovery.’
He went on to accuse China of stealing intellectual property, violating
international trade agreements and dumping goods. He also denounced
China for acquiring national resources in developing countries and
building up its military.

In his opening statement, the ranking Republican on the committee,
Richard Shelby of Alabama, declared, ‘There is no question that China
manipulates its currency in order to subsidize Chinese exports. The only
question is: Why is the administration protecting China by refusing to
designate it as a currency manipulator?’

Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, said, ‘China’s currency
manipulation is like a boot on the throat of our recovery and this
administration refuses to try to get China to remove that boot.’”

On top of all this, China has now overtaken the US as the world’s top energy consumer. Michael T. Klare reports on China’s new position of power:

“The main point: by becoming the world’s leading energy
consumer, China will also become an ever more dominant international
actor and so set the pace in shaping our global future.

Because energy is tied to so many aspects of the global economy, and
because doubts are growing about the future availability of oil and
other vital fuels, the decisions China makes regarding its energy
portfolio will have far-reaching consequences. As the leading player in
the global energy market, China will significantly determine not only
the prices we will be paying for critical fuels but also the type of
energy systems we will come to rely on. More importantly, China’s
decisions on energy preferences will largely determine whether China and
the United States can avoid becoming embroiled in a global struggle
over imported oil and whether the world will escape catastrophic climate
change.”

China’s rise in power, mixed with the decline of western economies
and the need for an external scapegoat sets up a global collision and
inevitable confrontation between vying superpowers. Currency and trade
wars will likely be a prelude to military confrontation.

Based on early maneuvering it is evident that the masters of war have
already drawn up sides. You may have missed it, but the US, Israel and
the NATO Alliance have already put Iran, Lebanon, Syria, North Korea,
Venezuela, Russia and China on notice. And the “withdrawals” from Iraq
and the Af-Pak region are over-hyped. The occupation of these countries
continues with no end in sight. In fact, they aren’t withdrawing as
much as they are repositioning and shifting their forces, preparing for
an escalation. In many ways the wars in Iraq and Af-Pak have only been
the initial phase of a global attack, positioning forces and building
massive military bases in pivotal geo-strategic locations. The
operations in this region have essentially been a warm-up for much
wider-ranging attacks against much stronger countries. While most of
the US population is playing checkers, seeing the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan as one-off battles, the global banking cartel is playing
chess, using these wars as only initial geo-strategic moves in a grand
strategy toward total world domination.

The intensity of military maneuvering presently occurring is alarming. Read through these recent news reports pulled from the AmpedStatus database, all from just the past few weeks, and let me know if you think I’m being extreme in foreseeing World War III:

So there we have it. The global Economic Elite
have effectively looted and destroyed national economies worldwide, the
propaganda system is quickly collapsing, and the masses are beginning
to get restless. It’s time to move to the next phase of the attack.
Preparations are already underway. We are on the road to World War III.

Add
to this picture rapidly declining natural resources and an increasingly
hostile and polluted environment with extreme weather events frequently
pounding the globe. In the past decade the global corporate elite have
already engaged in three major resource wars in Iraq, Af-Pak and
Northern Africa.

With a growing global population and an increasing demand for declining resources, we have already crossed a tipping point and are now in the ecological red.
For the first time in human history, we are now consuming resources
faster than nature can produce them. As developing countries like China
and India attempt to live like western countries, there are simply not
enough resources. The global economy is built on an unsustainable
foundation. Instead of evolving and changing course, the entrenched
banking power base is digging in further, and they run NATO, the private
military complex and the US government. Based on the current policies
that are in place, they have clearly already decided that they want to
keep living business as usual and refuse to evolve and adapt to a
rapidly changing environment. With this decision, they have effectively
already decided to further escalate their oppression of the overwhelming
majority of humanity, and this will lead to the death of literally hundreds of millions of people.

The global banking cartel view the world’s limited resources as their
property, and they have consistently proven that they have absolutely
no hesitation in killing millions upon millions of people for
these resources - just look at what they have already done in the recent
past throughout Northern Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

In the years since Northern Africa was discovered to be “the richest patch of earth” due to large deposits of natural minerals that are needed to power computer technologies, over five million Africans, in just that region, have died as a result of war.

The global elite have consistently used a strategy of arming and
funding both sides of armed conflicts. While opposing populations kill
each other off, they make off with their natural resources.
When they confront a government that cannot be bribed or provoked into
civil or regional war, they fund brutal death squads, attempt military
coups and intimidate them by giving weapons to undemocratic neighboring
regimes. If all that doesn’t work, they are declared a threat to
national security and the US military, private contractors and NATO
forces invade and occupy the country.

These terrorist strategies are not limited to the Middle East and
Africa, just ask our neighbors throughout Latin America about the School
of the Americas. Contrary to popular belief, the horrendous torture
techniques inflicted upon people in Abu Ghraib, Iraq were not an
isolated incident. Many of those brutal torture techniques were developed over years by torturing innocent civilians throughout Latin America.

The picture in Latin America today is one of inspiration. People throughout the region are rising up
against the global corporate elite and claiming their rights and
natural resources as their own, from Bolivia to Ecuador to Venezuela.
This is another factor driving the “endangered oligarchy” into resorting
to military desperation. The military coup in Honduras, the attempted
coup in Venezuela, and the failed attempt to provoke Columbia and
Venezuela into an armed conflict all clearly indicate where this
situation is headed if the imperialist bankers get their way.

The average American is dreadfully unaware of just how depraved these
people are. The little regard they have for human life is beyond
common comprehension.

The global elite have already used the “War on Terror” as a pretext
to drastically increase military spending and build a massive private
military and intelligence complex on the backs of the American taxpayer.
According to an extensive report from the Washington Post, a stunning 1.2 million private contractors work in this complex. Most Americans are not aware that 69 percent of the soldiers deployed in our name are private contractors, and 80 percent of them are foreign nationals,
meaning they are not even from the United States. Half of the people
we have deployed in our name, who are funded by our tax dollars, are not
even fighting for our country, they are fighting for a paycheck.

Wars are a highly profitable racket, which gives an enormous
incentive to keep them going. This is one of the reasons why the war
in Afghanistan is now the longest war in US history. This system has
led to a perpetual state of war. Military spending, although widely
reported as being around $680 billion per year, is more accurately totaling over $1 Trillion per year. Of this staggering amount of annual spending, 25 percent of it goes unaccounted for, not counting the billions of our tax dollars lost to over-charging and all-out fraud.

This private military complex has become so out of control that politicians are now forced to admit that they have no idea what is happening within it. As the Washington Post report revealed:

“The top-secret world the government created in response
to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so
unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how
many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly
how many agencies do the same work.

These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The
Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography
of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and
lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented
spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep
the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is
impossible to determine.

The investigation’s other findings include:

* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies
work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and
intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as
live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.”

There are so many unaccountable cells and competing factions within
this complex, any one of them could go rogue and launch an attack on the
US soil and make it look like another “terrorist” organization or
nation executed it. This may sound too conspiratorial to the casual
observer, but it would be stunningly naïve to think that in a
massive complex like this, with so little oversight and accountability,
given the huge sums of money at stake, that something tragic wouldn’t
eventually occur. The implications are ominous, to say the least.

We already had a proven act of internal domestic terror occur with the Anthrax attacks
in 2001. It is not a stretch to think that any moves away from a state
of permanent war, and any cut to military spending that would threaten
the existence of many of the world’s largest and most powerful and
profitable corporations, would result in an attack in hopes of inciting a
military conflict. Former President Dwight Eisenhower’s warning
against the “unwarranted influence” of the military industrial complex,
and “the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power” pales in
comparison to the modern private military complex. While many of these
companies currently rely on US tax dollars, they are not part of the
government, they are global private entities with their own interests at
heart, similar to the Federal Reserve banking system. In fact, when
you peel back the layers, many of these private military companies are
funded by the global banking cartel.

When you understand the forces behind war, you must acknowledge the
words of famed two-time Congressional Medal of Honor recipient US
Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler. He accurately summed up the
situation when he said:

“I spent 33 years in the Marines, most of my time being a
high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and the
bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for Capitalism…. The general public
shoulders the bill. This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly
placed gravestones, Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and
homes. Economic instability. Back-breaking taxation for generations and
generations.”

To give just two brief examples of how the banking cartel operates
behind the scenes during wars, consider the following. The genocidal
carnage in Northern Africa that killed over 5.4 million people was enthusiastically supported by the IMF and World Bank. In a news report entitled, “The Business of War in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Dena Montague and Frida Berrigan explained:

“The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank
have knowingly contributed to the war effort. The international lending
institutions praised both Rwanda and Uganda for increasing their gross
domestic product (GDP), which resulted from the illegal mining of DRC
resources. Although the IMF and World Bank were aware that the rise in
GDP coincided with the DRC war… they nonetheless touted both nations as
economic success stories….”

In another example of grotesque profiting off massive levels of
death, banking cartel members made a fortune on the production of
cluster bombs. The Guardian revealed the details:

“The deadly trade in cluster bombs is funded by the
world’s biggest banks who have loaned or arranged finance worth $20bn to
firms producing the controversial weapons, despite growing
international efforts to ban them.

HSBC… has profited more than any other institution from companies
that manufacture cluster bombs. The British bank… has earned a total of
£657.3m in fees arranging bonds and share offerings for Textron, which
makes cluster munitions…. Campaigners maintain the deadly weapons can
explode years after combat, killing or maiming innocent people….

Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JP Morgan and UK-based Barclays Bank
are also named among the worst banks [funding the production of cluster
bombs]….

Goldman Sachs, the US bank which made £3.19bn proft in just three
months, earned $588.82m for bank services and lent $250m to [cluster
bomb manufactures] Alliant Techsystems and Textron.”

To sum all of this up, the global banking cartel and private military
complex are a runaway virus that demands a permanent state of warfare.
They are intrinsically parasitic in nature, they have devolved into a
fascist enterprise that survives and profits off of destruction. If
they don’t get a war, they will create one in the interest of their own
self preservation. As former CIA Station Chief John Stockwell once
explained: “Enemies are necessary for the wheels of the US military
machine to turn.” This insight can now be extended to the global
banking cartel. Enemies are now necessary for the wheels of the global
banking cartel to turn.

Under the cover of the “War on Terror” they have launched a massive
campaign of violence abroad and have been systematically looting our
economy and stripping of us civil liberties at home.

So as the US and global population becomes more radical, and as the
environment becomes more hostile, with increasingly limited natural
resources, in a desperate attempt to maintain power the global banking
cartel will escalate from economic attacks to worldwide military-based
assaults. This is the clear path we are on - the road to World War III.

“History Repeats Itself, Coiling Down Into the Future.”
– Natural Born Killers

This may very well be a case of history repeating itself. Not to
oversimplify an extremely complex situation, but this is all too similar
to the origins of World War II. The looting of the masses by an
unaccountable Wall Street elite led to the Great Depression and set the
conditions for WWII. Desperate and impoverished populations
increasingly supported more and more extreme leaders. The conditions
are now so ripe for world war that Noam Chomsky has convincingly
compared modern-day America to Weimar Germany
prior to the outbreak of WWII. Research the history of pre-war
societies and you will see for yourself how our current political
environment fits historical precedent like a glove.

As mentioned before, the roots of our current crisis can be directly
traced back to the aftermath of World War II. In the ruins of WWII grew
global institutions like the IMF and World Bank. It also gave us the
National Security Act and the CIA. All were central and pivotal in
creating the crisis which we are now confronted with.

After analyzing our current crisis and studying well-established
historical precedents, one must conclude that creating a world war is
the last card the global bankers have left to play, other than conceding power, and history has taught us that the ruling class never concedes power. Of course the one-tenth of one percent of the global population hoarding our wealth could give back a significant amount of the $39 Trillion
they looted from us (not counting what they have hidden in offshore
accounts). That would certainly go a long way to fixing the crisis they
have caused, but again, the ruling class has never conceded power, no matter how excessive and ill-gotten their gains.

So brace yourself… unless we significantly change our present course, we are on the road to World War III.

I don't put much stock in the junk button anymore (unless the numbers get high), but I wonder if you got junked because you used "bitchez" or because you called it ridiculous (even if in jest)? Could go either way...

Yes, because the mindbending reality of the extraordinary and unprecedented global challenges we now face that are threatening the survival of our young global civilization and our very existence as a living species, have nothing to do with macroeconomics and markets, markets, markets... Its all just some collective paranoid fantasy we're having here, forgive us mr average intelligence, for we know not what we do...

As if the only thing that matters is "markets". ZH is one of the best news outlets I have ever read- if only because they print whatever is available and ALLOW you to decide it's relevance. It may be important, it may be ridiculous- but it is usually thought provoking and a good test for your analytical skills.

This piece has an interesting dichotomy. One, it presents an accurate overall assessment of what is happening in the world today. If you are well read, you would realize this. The efforts of the elite and their various fronts (the IMF, BIS, World Bank. etc) are well documented and leave readily identifiable results.

However, I would question parts of the analysis- it creates the feeling of hopelessness that is typical of elite literature. The overwhelming burden a massive power structure can exert on it's foes- us. Perhaps, the full text will present possible strategies to confront these actions, I hope it does.

For me, it is simple. In the face of such an onslaught, the solutions are easy:

1. Eliminate the government tit from your life.

2. Live without debt

3. Eliminate fiat currency from your life as much as possible. Place your wealth in real assets: food, land, water and gold.

4. Work to remove yourself from the entanglements of citizenship.

5. Subvert the ruling paradigm.

The powers that are rely on our weakness and disorganization. They revel in our feelings of powerlessness. They present a face of overwhelming force. However, they are weak- they are few, they depend on their ability to use fiat currency to pay labor and then steal it back through government action.

As the author indicates- their blueprint is very visible from past actions in the developing world and from previous actions by CB's starting with the Bank of England. ALL of these actions require Fractional Reserve Currency systems. They all require taxation and large bureaucracies we call governments.

As long as we allow others to have power and control over our actions, we will wear the chains of slavery. Make no mistake- it is OUR inaction and acquiesence that makes their power possible. It will be our action that makes liberty possible. We just have to say no, knowing that the repercussions can be dire.

This is the best September since '39 so you have precedent. Needless to say "'39 is a big precedent." Also the conflict between the World Bank and the IMF is a REALLY big deal so "leaked documents from the WB" are a must read. This stuff is probably beyond most of your readers but it's a great post and obviously a challenging read. One aspect you do not touch upon (because of clown George Washington) is called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. That ain't no private army. With what France and Germany are doing it makes an orgainzation like that potentially a big deal. If you wish for me to explain i can "give you a history lesson." But you gotta ask nicely. I said "you gotta ask nicely."

"When trillions of dollars are looted from the economy, and the people who did the looting are not held accountable and are allowed to remain in positions of power, only a fool would think that the economy would improve."

Without a coherent non-violent movement to provide a viable alternative, without an outlet for severe and legitimate grievances that provides any chance for urgently affecting necessary political change, people will resort to violence as a last desperate act of vengeance and frustration.

This is, in essence, my take on the Tea Party. A last gasp at the re-establishment of a citizen-focused, republican government. It will inevitably fail, of course. If the Tea Party makes significant inroads in November, the elites will conjure a false flag attack or "necessary" war to refocus its truant serfs on the "real" enemy.

+1. I'm having a hard time getting behind a lot of the candidates but I don't have much of a choice. It's progressive, douche-nozzles or Tea Party and I sure as hell am NOT going with any progressive's. The problem is, I keep hearing the TP candidates say things that I'm really in favor of and they go and say something like ".. and I'll save Social Security".. and I'm like.. NOOOO!! let it die!!

All your comments are spot on. A healthy portion of the Tea Party is the Ron Paul, End-the-Fed, End-the-Wars segment of society, but because the Tea Party is such a disparate coalition, and therefore, so easily subverted, those messages are easily swallowed up by populist messages like Cut Spending (except My Spending). For example, the original Tea Party had nno particular love for Sarah Palin, but now she has established herself as Tea Party Queen, with the willing help of a media gleeful at a subversion of the original Tea Party message.

I personally have no favorable opinion of her as a politician. As a person, I'm sure she's as nice as can be. I just can't support her as a politician much less vote for her for any office. She's a political train wreck in my opinion.

All the elections have taught me that it's a choice between "Suck" and "Suck Less". This year has far been populated with a number of "Sucks Less" people (IMO). Seriously, who in their right mind would vote for someone like Chuck Schumer? Merely speaking his name makes me want to scrub my body with a brillo pad.

Please see my above comment. Palin is absolutely NOT representative of the original(real!) TEA Party. She is a GOP plant. Don't buy into the media's tricks! The social conservative scumdogs DO NOT represent the TEA Party, just as the Statists should not be the face of the Democrats (although they have been for a century or so). The TEA Party is attempting to infiltrate the right wing of the Progressive party ("republicans") in order to bring at least one of the parties to somwhere outside of RINO DINO land. Fuck you two party system, FUCK YOU!

Conrad - It's compromised. It's been decapitated. Apparently the GWOT and the Fed are sacrosanct. I admit, I liked the idea when it started too, but time to admit it's over. Time to find a new vehicle.

Awful might be an understatement. I went to the last April 15th rally in a major city. I will never go to another and have sworn off my support of this movement. It has been completely and utterly infiltrated by war mongering neo-con retards.

The real libertarians and constitutionalists need to go back to the drawing board and start from scratch..

Actually, on second thought, there is no hope with the current system. With the MSM supplying the hypnotizing waves of ignorance for the masses, there is no chance of the extreme breakdown of this current system that is necessary.

I don't think the Republicans are thrilled about absorbing the TEA party folks, but they probably have no choice. The TEA party could have maybe compromised our one party system (but probably not), and if the right broke free then the left would have broken free as well. Then where would we be?

I see the TEA Party, which is nothing but libertarian-minded people, as the first real wedge in the one party-two head system. It is a goddamn shame it's being absorbed by the same pieces of shit that have ran us into the ground since Jefferson. Study your history, know your neighbors, love your family. The media is failing us as the fourth estate, and unless we can rouse them from their dick-gargling state, things are going to get very ugly.

On another note, I can appreciate the libertarian mindset, but from my perspective there are some practical limitations to it. Firstly, libertarians seem to be willing to extend their values to corporations, which were however not endowed by their creator with certain unalienable right (their creators being men have no authority to bestow unalienable rights upon them), this could allow companies to water down personal liberties. Secondly, I am not aware of any states with libertarian qualities that were not either conquered or transformed into something less libertarian.

It is important to note that Jefferson lived a long time and that his views changed over the course of his life. Anyone who evokes Jefferson should be mindful that even Jefferson himself may not in fact agree with them.

I think that the media/entertainment industry would have been part of the first estate to the extent that they would not have been in the second estate.

The Tea Party is typically American. They are angry people who were told to just be angry people and given no concrete reasons on why they should be angry people. They are an angry club because it is trendy. Sure, there may be some in there who get it. But good luck to them in trying to explain to the other 99% that a black president, a Mexican doing roofing, and losing their Medicare are not the earth shattering issues they believe them to be. The Tea Party is just another idiotic baby boomer tantrum. They have come full circle from WoodStock.

While this piece is very interesting, I still have doubts about the whole bankster-led-conspiracy is the cause of our problems and that the apparent fascist solutions are what is inevitable. Still, this is great food for thought.

It is certainly true that resource scarcity is going to be a huge problem in the years to come.

My concern, for the past 6-9 months, is that people will start writing along these type of lines - thus making it easier for more and more of this sort of stuff - and I know that this is on the mind/lips of many Americans right now.

I don't think that this is a good thing. Why? Because it's possible, very possible - and we're not seeing anything being done, other than bread and circuses, to deal with the issues making this possible.

I'm a rock-rib conservative - AND I say if we're not sending the more genteel Madoff's to jail - then raise the income tax on incomes above $1million. I'm guessing that not too many of them are part of the "77 percent" living paycheck to paycheck.

I believe that this action would enable a little bit of the boiling steam to escape from the societal kettle and thus make "violence," etc. far less likely. Trust me, Buffet and Munger are NOT helping the pot to simmer - as their comments are just adding fuel to the fire. Are they complete idiots or members of the Antoinette society? Both?

We have a wonderful country and it is full of very smart and patriotic people - left, middle and right - but right now it appears as if our ruling class is more interested in the golden calf of power than to listen to the angst and discord from the voters.

I'm with you being hopeful, but there is far too much to fix I fear. We have strayed SO FAR off the path of our classical liberal founding that it seems only revolution will suffice. And really, there are too many intertwined interests in our country (military-industrial-financial-congressional-media) that even that may not be possible. We allowed a standing army to exist, and now it will be used against us as the founders feared; and they have some serious fucking tools. World war may be the only possible outcome.

As long as you hyphenate yourself and think that you live behind barbed wire and your neighbors are being shot, incinerated, or subjected to slave labor, there is very little likelihood that you will make it anywhere. Is it the United States... or is it you?

Nope. Didn't say that. You were speaking in the present tense and that is not the present case. Ask me tomorrow and the answer might be different. It is too bad that you feel that way because I can guarantee you that it will not be fellow Americans who will do you in -- it will be our elected "agents".

While I recognize that there are indeed altruistic souls in existence, the vast majority are stupid and selfish.

I'm certain that the number of Germans who turned their Jewish neighbors in to the Nazis far outnumbers the number of Germans who tried to hide said neighbors. Fear is an incredibly powerful motivator.

I highly doubt that present day Americans understand concepts such as "honor" and "respect" better than Nazi Germans do. I also doubt said Americans are less susceptible to fear.

In an attempt to stave off organized rebellion, they are already escalating their propaganda efforts in attempts to divide and distract the population. The tactics of their divide and conquer strategy are already on full display. Their mainstream media outlets have drastically increased coverage and focused attention on the rhetoric of division - using divisive issues like immigration, racism, religious bigotry, the “lazy unemployed,” “entitlement welfare” and gay marriage to divide and distract the population and prevent the masses from organizing against their true oppressors.

The old saying comes to mind:

“If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately.” Thomas Paine

Getting ourselves together and stopping the political, racial, and religious pettiness is an absolute necessity. Come on! Cut the crap. Our leaders will do all they can to divide and keep us conquered.

I do believe we have a solution to that one. Take out television. Don't watch it. Don't let anyone watch it. That is still the main channel trough which we, the people, are fed with lies and deceit. Eventhough we have the internet now, television is still the key. One might say that removing television (either stations or transmitting station) might be a good thing.

Other way to look at this is to create ones own channel, but one needs to have a transmitting station as well and possibly means of defence against the shit storm that will start if this channel ever breaks trough.

Agree completely Grappa. I think what also happens is that a person downs a bud and watches a game at night (totally bought into false paradigms) and wakes up in the morning and says that thisother paradigm (finance, housing, givermint, whatever), one that he/she does not particularly like, should go.

i'll add my assent: didn't pay for cable; when high def came my vcr couldn't get good enough reception to tape the shows (particularly audio) so i stopped (hate commercials more than i liked the content). watch the best on dvd (breaking bad, veronica mars, weeds, etc.). quality of life and mind improved considerably. p.s. i think we are on that tv station (mentioned earlier) right now.

Mention Israel and see what happens. Mention Muslims and see what happens. Even the phrase Tea Party evokes some heated conversation about which political party is at fault.

It starts here, with us.

I can watch all the TV I like and still survive. Mine came with a fully functioning remote and there is plenty of worthwhile programming available. I see about 1 hour of Fox a week, just to confirm what I suspected. I see enough of MSNBC to confirm what I suspected. You can remove the TV or offer alternative programming but you can't remove STUPID from the general populace. Leave the outside influences alone. Let's just do our part here on this forum. That will attract enough adherents to do the job. But, fighting verbally amongst ourselves here on ZH will do nothing but turn off the rest of the possible viewers who just see tin-foil hat zealots.

this is so true. i was encouraged that people would spend way more time reading when the whole DTV thing went down. i cannot imagine ever paying for cable again. a funny thing happened to me over the last 2 years too, i managed to earn more than i ever have thanks in part to the fact that i spend so much more time researching where to position myself in the market.

"Other way to look at this is to create ones own channel, but one needs to have a transmitting station as well and possibly means of defence against the shit storm that will start if this channel ever breaks trough."

In a few years, our computers will be our flatscreen tv's.

Once this happens, you will see independent television "networks" begin to stream over the internet instead of through television stations.

Anyone with a little elbow grease and determination will be able to create their own streaming news network for very little cash by using a few used cameras, Skype for interviews, and a cheap greenscreen program to give your "studio" a professional look.

This technology will provide us a way to compete with mainstream media and offer an alternative.

YES...I agree..Stop listening to the lies/BS on *ALL* TV.....It rots your mind as well as well as it is the "mouthpiece of the Elite"....Also I have a Chinese brother-in-law who is 73 yo & started a great job 2 Yrs ago & they LOVE this guy.....MA

I just read the whole thing, too; the most I've read word for word in a long time. Unfortunately, I'm scared out of my wits. Who am I more afraid for....... me, an old woman or my kids & grandkids with no future ! HOW THE HELL DID THINGS GET LIKE THIS !! If this was meant to scare me, it worked.

Being scared out of your wits is exactly what you should be. Anyone with a functioning brain should be scared to death at this point.

So, what to do? If you have the means, take out some "gold insurance" (buy physical gold) and be prepared to give it to your children or grandchildren. Be ready, RIGHT NOW, in case your Soc Sec gets cut off, so you can prepare a survival plan.

I really don't KNOW how much of this piece speaks the truth or not. But, when I have doubts, I start saving and cutting back. I too am more scared and have more doubts about our future direction than I ever have. I am 54, and hope that we may have a grandchild or two before long. And they WILL get help from me, you betcha!

there are no jobs, there are no jobs for women like me ! 60, educated, cultured ..... no one wants these kind of women. employers want idiots that can be easily manipulated & taken advantage of ! as for social security, i paid into it for over 30 years, since I was 15 years old ! why didn't someone tell me years ago that all I had to do was buy gold & silver coins once in a while & just put them away for my old age ........... I FEEL LIKE I'VE BEEN SCAMMED IN THE BIGGEST SCAM & CON OF THE CENTURY ! ......... i'm scared of starving to death, or worse, watching others starve to death & being helpless to feed people.

You have been scammed. Best to come to grips with it now. I'm the first to harp on your generation for letting it get to this point, but I'm not heartless. Your contemporaries will have to suffer with the rest of us now, and probably more so. The best thing you can do is get back to what's truly important in life: friends, family, education, land, gold, guns, self-sustainability. Perhaps most importantly, do what you can to awaken your family. Talk to them about your fears, show them articles and books, do what you can so others know where you're coming from. The more people on your team, the better your chances.

WW3 ...theres nothing the people can do......."These" people are too organized...in their efforts....these events have been planned long time back....ONly God can help....no Human leader however good he might be ..can stop them

If WW3 is truly the point were we are heading then I have to say that if it starts around 2012 and the day is what everyone has heard it could be then I'll be awe struck. But then again... /hats on people! Nostradamus and his fellow profets could be right on this one if they "honestly" have been right on those other grim predictions as well /Hats off...

You are missing the point. Yes, the mess we are in has been orchestrated by a cartel of evil men looking to control and govern us. However, that is not the end game - those evil men in the cartel are working for someone much more sinister. The end game is nothing less than the enthrownment of the son of perdition as the ruler of the world. This is being enabled through the creation of a new world order of global government. We are being set up to merge together with the other nations of the world to make this happen. In order to do that, they have to take take down the US so that we willingly go along wit the game.

Wake up - this is hardball and the opposition is taking many prisioners (for an eternity in fact). Look around you - do any of the events going on in the world today make any sense? If you try to attribute some worldly agenda behind it all - hell no. If you look at it from a supernatural war - hell yes it does.

I have come to see the NWO as being, quite literally, Satan. The power elite are his neurons, their laws are his memory, their securities are his neurotransmitters, their armies are his muscles, and their petty thug cops are his antibodies. They are all bound up in one worldwide, parasitic, soul sucking meta-entity. Nothing truly supernatural required (i.e. math is still the ultimate law).

The Illuminati took that name because they have the "Light of Lucifer", which lets them see how to sucker the greatest number of people into slavery, misery, and damnation. When people turn on each other out of ignorance or desperation, they channel Satan and make him stronger (at the expense of their own souls). We all take the bait on occaison, but Satan takes particular delight into tricking otherwise good people into doing his bidding. The patriots, fundamentalists, busybodies, socialists, tax collectors, and cops are all putty in his claws. Most people who dedicated their lives to him would either deny his existence or claim they worked for God. Only after they have crossed the event horizon will they look back and realize what they have done. That's the final black swan- the black swan of the soul.

isn't that wild you should say that about the SON of PERDITION. not but a year ago my 86-year-old uncle walt, who's parents were from the UKRAINE told me that he feels that the ANTI-CHRIST is walking the earth ! I don't even know what an ANTI-CHRIST is, I'm not religious. But, Uncle Walt started rambling about the ANTI-CHRIST & the Book of Revelations. Why can't things be like they were in the 90's .......... I was totally stupid then ........ ignorance was bliss.

careful with the anti-christ--- the the real anti-christ might be the false prophet that repalces the perceived anti-christ- . Some say the the current pOtus is the "set up"- for this false prohet who wil be introduced as the "savior" in a manufactured "2012 event" --

This article makes logical sense, however im dubious of anyone who thinks they can predict the future.

Having said this, the trends are hard to deny. Something is going to occur this is for sure, but War? I have just about finished my Masters in Strategic Studies and one thing that has been drilled in to me is that interstate war (although not obsolete) is increasingly unlikely. The costs are simply too high for any sort of political gain.

How can a war (and i am assuming it would be 'Total War') that would result in nuclear exchange be justified under any circumstances? I simply cant see it happening. Where would the elites hide? Would people really want to fight in a war against Chinamen who have taken their jobs? i wouldnt.

On second thoughts i can slightly envision a war, but there would have to be total breakdown of society before such irrationalism could come to pass. Although things are really bad, and im counting on them getting much worse, at the moment i see nothing but stability and order. The stock market is rising, our property market here in OZ is booming, as is our mining sector. Unemployment is low and everyone is happy. Things have never been better.

i know however that global paper wealth exceeds actual global wealth by who knows 100-1, more even? If there is some sort of run, could our fantasy world come crashing down? As long as everyone remains ignorant why would there be run. As long as we have dodgy accounting practices why cant this facade go on indefinately (at least until the bulk of baby boomers retire).

I think a war would do humanity the world of good. We need to reset, and to consolidate. We need to get back in touch with reality. We need a sustainable existance. I hope you are right, for the good of us all as i dont see our condition improving any other way.

I JUST CANT STAND THE UNCERTAINTY! WTF is going to happen? im too scared to invest, im worried that my savings will become worthless, i wonder if i should travel more and live the highlife now while i still can, should i store more food?petrol? water? I just wish something would happen so we have some sort of base, some sort of stability to plan our future. Fuck this can kicking shit! Bring things to a head, if its war, so be it.

"How can a war (and i am assuming it would be 'Total War') that would result in nuclear exchange be justified under any circumstances?"

"I think a war would do humanity the world of good. We need to reset, and to consolidate. We need to get back in touch with reality. We need a sustainable existance. I hope you are right, for the good of us all as i dont see our condition improving any other way."

All it takes is a few in power who feel the same as you (and I don't mean that in a snide way). Too many people on earth, not enough resources, general hopelessness, whackos fightin it out over religion. Lots of reasons someone with power might just say, "Fuck it".

The insight that developed nations cannot gain either economically or politically from war with each other was first posited by Sir Norman Angell, winning him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1933. His prediction was elegantly confirmed by WWII in which both victors and vanquished experienced economic and political losses.

The USA, being slow to learn, has repeated the same course for fifty years, digging itself deeper into debt and devaluation with each successive military adventure.

By the way, don't ever stockpile petrol. It is highly unstable and flammable. Much better to get a diesel engine and stockpile diesel, which keeps indefinitely and does not have flammable vapours. Diesel engine cars are twice as fuel efficient on average, and the engines also last twice as long as they operate a lower temperatures than petrol engines.

The notion that nations could not benefit from war has often been coupled with the belief that therefore nations would not actually engage in war.

It may well be true that from a rational, collective point of view, "nations" and the citizens of those nations do not benefit from war.

However, it is also true that elements within a nation may benefit in some way(at least in the short run). Furthermore, some elements may believe (falsely or not) that they will benefit from war, or that it is the only option to preserve their power whatever the short-term cost.

The flaw in your thinking is believing that 'nation-states' control their own destinies. If the looters want WWIII to distract the masses and 'cull the herd', you can bet your last Au oz. they'll pull that lever. And I'm sure they're not worried for themselves - if they'll spend tens of millions to create 'seed vaults'* to protect 'their' food sources, they've also built protection for themselves as well (even if not publically touted).

So not so much a conspiracy then as simply an implicit understanding between like-minded individuals? John Perkins said something along those lines too.

Eric Blair sums up the problem nicely though,

"Foreseeing some dismal Marxian Utopia as the alternative, the educated man prefers to keep things as they are. Possibly he does not like his fellow rich very much, but he supposes that even the vulgarest of them are less inimical to his pleasures, more his kind of people, than the poor, and that he had better stand by them. It is this fear of a supposedly dangerous mob that makes nearly all intelligent people conservative in their opinions."

Fortunately Canada's hero offers a solution:

"Courage my friend. It is not too late to make the world a better place." -Tommy Douglas (after his visit to Germany in 1939. Prior to that...well, we all make mistakes.)

I spent (no longer now) 19 years working inside two of the banking cartel members.

There is NO conspiracy to destroy everyone's way of life. Most of the economic destruction is sheer incompetence brought about by unbridled personal greed.

They own the government which is why prosecutions are not forthcoming for all the criminal acts of the credit crisis.

There is however an overriding imperative for those at the top of the banking cartel to become extremely rich. Even if it means dividing the population of nations into 1% haves and 99% have-nots. Reminicient of the medieval serfdom paradigm of the 13th century (but debt slaves instead of land slaves).

Yet the members of the ABA are toothless in bringing down the thousands of white collar criminals responsible for lending fraud, misselling, mis-rating, securitization racketeering, regulators and federal reserve board members who overstep the legal boundaries of their jobs or fail to follow their own black letter obligations.

I mean, I was studying this in my undergrad degree program in '99-'00 under a national Libertarian professor. He badly mistimed the events as he didn't believe Greenspan would immediately reinflate the bubble when the tech bubble eventually would burst.

Having lived through that... I'm holding out the hope that the Bernanke Fed will immediately reinflate a bubble in the coming months before the world starts currency/protectionism/mercantilism wars...

Alot of it comes down to how people perceive things. The bedrock of Aristotle and Empiricism are two 'religions' that pretty much guarantee a lack of thinking. We've built our educational foundation on quicksand.

On the resources thing, we have a way NOT to run out, but we have to invent it. Fusion Arc. With such a device mankind can create any of the 92 basic elements. So in a sense if TPTB, Queen of England crowd want to horde what we have, they only have a few decades left to prevent it's invention, and what's coming has a shot, especially with so many clueless people. After that, we'll have basically limitless energy AND unlimited elements 1-92 to work with.

On the bankers just being incompetent. Again, perception. Also, these guys aren't the top rung. The richest people have more than 11 digits.

When it comes to 'too costly' to the state for wars. They don't care about the state. They'll take their wealth and move to wherever isn't radioactive or what not.

Tea Party is wholly corrupt. Those that aren't while having good intentions, like Ron Paul, also succumb to the dumbassery. It's not about social spending. It's not about deficits. It's about the SYSTEM. It's rashed. Always was trash. Thus without taking any of this into account, the TEA party (the few legitimate ones) are as intellectually bankrupt as either of the major parties. But even then, it's run by the corporate whore QoE types anyways, and I don't see any of them kicking them out. If they haven't yet, they never will.

None of this has to do with social spending on anything. It's the other stuff that created this crisis, now with all dollars spent being equal (there's that sohpistry again) we now equate one dollar of banker debt as equal to one dollar of needed social spending spent (or reduced in favor of). This is complete bs. If you're bitching about social spending, congratulations you are doing the banksters legwork for them, and are part of the problem by so easily pointing your finger at your fellow scammed American or other.

Glass/Steagall will stop the banksters RIGHT IN THEIR TRACKS.

With trillions of debt wiped off our books, we can actually utter credit, not money, for platform infrastructure. This is where you build infrastructure projects that lead to synergy. Educaiton, Science, Nuclear power, Fusion, Space Program, NAWAPA (water, terraforming earth's deserts as precursor to Mars terraforming), all wrapped up together so they all benefit from the work done in other areas to exceed what they could do alone.

Now with such plans, we can finally realize FDR's dream of ending imperalism, and giving the world its soveriegnity back.

Part of that is protectionism. Because without debt, free trade doesn't work. Outsourcing, doesn't work.

Lots of people need to rid their brains of insane supply-side, trickle down, imperialism (renamed GLOBALIZATION). So the ones that have the most to learn and change are definitely the repubs and conservatives. Because they're whole lives they've believed in a huge lie.

You see we need to have FIXED exchange rates, among nation-states. Not floating. So instead of having China float, we need all of us to peg. We need high import taxes on industries we need, if necessary to keep them alive and thriving here. Only idiots think our best economy happened AFTER all the free trade happened. Our best economic days were when it was our policy for OVER 200 years to excise import taxes. It's called protectionsim, for a reason. It works.

People are still too wrapped up in the bullshit to realize where we are, and where we're going. Few will try to figure out how we got here.

After WWII instead of making the world in America's image. America both imported and exported the British Imperial model. Great huh. We're more British now than we were in 1775. Even our president has forgotten our legacy (the other side generations ago) and proclaims the foreign system we fought to separate from, is now our system once again. Our founding fathers are rolling over in their graves, as we didn't keep what they gave us. We gave it away at the moment of our greatest triumph, our greatest gift to the world. We lied to everyone and said 'this is America'. Nope, what we exported was BRITISH.

It's really simple. Learn to think. Learn History. Remember your American heritage far better than even Ron Paul knows, because he's only right about a few things. A few major things, but only a few. Don't make a half dumbass into a Jesus. Also just because one guy looks so good sitting in between two bowls of shit, you might just be subconsciously biased a tad bit. Ron Paul and his, gov't shouldn't do anything pledge is perfect for the Queen after the system collapses. He'll be the guy that does nothing to right it. SO learn his limiations. Take what's good, and lump it into someone better.

But time is short. We need Glass/Steagall NOW. Not later. Not after the wealth has been sucked away and prices completely out of whack. Not after a few more triollion, tens or even hundred of trillions are added to our MONETARY deficit for the sake of those that destroyed the system.

It's going to take ALOT of money to fix this. Or we die. So we either cancel the bullshit, and THEN create what's needed. Or we die. Which of course seems to be their green plan anyways.

Nuclear/Fusion not wind/solar

Why? Energy flux density. That is the metric you use to decide which way you want to invest in. If someone say I'll invest in a with a negative return (wind/solar), or I can invest in Nuclear and Fusion, which is positive, and OFF THE FUCKING CHARTS. Rmemeber solar is catching fusion from 93 million miles away. Fusion/Fission is actually being what's 93 million miles away. One's worth the research (fusion), the other is a boondoggle.

Again, for a great website that tells the truth, add larouchepac.com/updates to your daily reading.

Be careful about be fooled. By the tea party. By republicans. By democrats in name only. By corporate whores. By people who can't think. By people with self-limiting behaviors. By people with no imagination. By people with no ideas. By people with mental sloth. By people who tell you, you need to give up things you need. By people who just want things to get back to 'normal'. By people who tell you its the other common man's fault or lifestyle/decisions. By people who tell you its social security and not fraudulent debt interest payments. Question everything.

"... the foreign system we fought to separate from, is now our system once again. Our founding fathers are rolling over in their graves..."

Tripe. Never before in the history of the world has there been a nation like America that has sought to align its self-interests with those of every other nation on earth. If you judge by individual cases you can wrangle. If you look at the whole you will see that America is not an empire.

Where would you look to find our empire? In the dust of Afghanistan or Iraq? We can't wait to get out of there. In the planes and ships our military use to patrol the skys and seas of the world? In the bases around the world where we are welcomed as a guarantor of liberty? In the graveyards where our fallen airmen, sailors, marines, and soldiers lie?

Never before in the history of the world has there been a nation like America that has sought to align its self-interests with those of every other nation on earth.

The shill-meter's gone to red alert. What a laugh. How would you reconcile your statement with the mid to late 20th century experience of say the Vietnamese?

The Laotians?

The Cambodians?

How about the more recent experiences of your need to "align" Panama, Serbia, Iraq and Afghanistan? And let's not forget, we're still trying to work out when and how "alignment" for the Persians will be worked out.

The ghost of the real Swamp Fox is not going to be too happy with what you're attempting to do with his name. Is that smart?

Not sure why you were junked without comment (3 junks before the first reply was posted), but it was not warranted. Disagreement is fine, as I'm sure you would agree. I don't follow all of your ideas, but none deserve junking.

How come we don't have a "Like" button as well as a "Junk" button? Or, perhaps, a 5-star rating like the articles themselves have?

The country is in a mess. How did it get this way? Perhaps the reasons are too many and varied for ready understanding and it's all just a series of causes and effects without end.

But we can always look at human nature. We can look in the mirror. Did that person looking back respect individual rights throughout his or her life? Or was social engineering on the mind? That is an easy question to answer and now that the social engineers have taken over every possible position of power, we are left wringing our hands and worrying about our future suffering.

You want a solution? First before anything else, read Emerson's essay, "Self-Reliance." Next, read Ron Paul's book wherein he says that if the US gov't were to sell off its land, it could continue to pay SS benefits to people to whom they are owed while the whole structure is being dismantled.

Next, go to DownsizeDC.org and participate in flooding representatives with email protesting their shenanigans. You can demand change now, not next week, and surely not in November. If millions of us do this we might, probably would, save ourselves yet.

To hell with voting and political parties. Only an idiot cannot see that voting is how we got where we are. The voting process is the way we have been controlled and is the way social engineers have taken power. The populace of the US once knew Emerson. The individual mattered. People who live in hives are expendable and are anything but charitable toward one another. What the populace now knows is not Emerson, not an agreeable disposition toward neighbors, not the rude truth, but fantasies pouring out of the lying mouths of celebrity politicians who sound charitable while working the con, but take their constituents for the fools they are.

You want to change the world? Change yourself first. Read Emerson, read Paul, go to DownsizeDC.org, write emails, buy gold and silver so you can help yourself and others survive and recover against what we have brought upon ourselves.

Stocks don't move in a vacuum. This article is the basis of investing philosophy. If one's stock market activity is based solely on TA then it's not really all-encompassing. (I am NOT one of your junkers.)

Ok I stopped reading as soon as this guy began spouting democracy. We are supposed to be a consitutional republic...not democratic republic (stop reading wikipedia). Democracies fall right into the hands of the banksters this is why they are such big fans of them. As Ben Franklin said "Democracy is 2 wolves and a sheep voting on what is for dinner...". All the banksters have to do is control a simple majority and they get their plans through. Democracy leads to 'economic imperialism' or rather an oligarchy. This has been in the works for the last 100 yrs and is coming to it's fruition. Some extremely wealthy people are going to walk away from this leaving everything else in ruins.

What a crap of an analysis. How many armed popular revolutions with violent overthrow of the rulers has ancient Rome had since the start of its gradual demise in the 3rd century? World does not work as simple as tinfoil hat illuminati NWO conspiracy theorists would have you believe.

for every rational human being there are dozens of "the end is nigh" crazies.

being constructive is the essence of rare leadership in this environment. in "less-free republics" a guy like this would be jailed. proof that our system is much more free than others, and frankly, one I am loving more and more.

who would be so ridiculous as to win the "embryo lottery" and end up in the united states--- and have the audacity to sit around and pen negativity until the day he died? it defies all logic to have a life wasted on spreading destruction in the wake of such a fine existence.

the best thing about this system is that you're free to leave it any time you like. in America--- no one forces you to stay, so you and your negativity train can leave any time you please.

How many people in Germany were supporters of the Nazi party and had no idea of the sick plans to "cleanse" the country from Jews and other undesirables? My guess is quite a few, and if some in the beauracracy had an inkling of what was occurring, most stayed quiet out of fear and the need to earn a living for their families. After all, Hitler got the trains running on time. I think most people genuinely thought the Nazis were only imprisoning the undesirables, not committing genocide.

We Americans like to think we were better than the people of 1930's Germany, but where's the evidence? I see no uprisings against the banksters and the protests I have seen are very small indeed.

Review creation of the Federal Reserve Act and ask yourself how is it that a private banking cartel created by our government is explicitly not accountable to congress or the executive branch? How is it that the new "consumer protection agency" is to track all personal financial transactions of each US individual but is housed in the unaccountable Fed Reserve? Also, read "It Came from Jekyll Island" for Fed Reserve 101 reading. The history of the USA has been a 200 year struggle with the banksters.

Also, who knew this? In 1861, the banking cartels of Britain, France, and Spain colluded with the respective national governments to invade Mexico because they defaulted on their loans. Having accomplished their goal, the invading forces were also poised to enter the American Civil War on the side of the South. The banking cartels had been at odds with Lincoln for not giving them banking charters. Lincoln was aware of the danger and called upon a friendly Russia to assist. Russian responded, and Russian warships were anchored in the harbors of SF and NY, and European foreign intervention in the Civil War was averted.

The American middle class and the 2nd Amendment has always stood in the way of the despots. Why change now?

I guarantee you that any 'militia' you are thinking of joining is about 30% FBI agents, and the recorders will be rolling, so watch what you say. Dumb people try to fight the government head-on and lose (see Waco, Ruby Ridge, etc). Smart people wait for the inevitable collapse and grow potatoes. He who lives longest wins.

ITG's plan: cower in the corner of a corn field while his friends and family and everyone else gets cornholed. He is fully aware that even he will eventually be rooted out of his cringe-spot, but he values his life above all else...

Alternately: Go join that militia you're interested in and do some fucking recording of your own. Root out the moles and plants (it's not impossible) and set them up for a fall.

Dumb people whinge in the dirt with ITG and watch all around them fall apart, praying that they will be raped last, essentially hoping for their neighbour to get it first. "I'm all right so fuck all the rest" is a recreant schlemiel's philosophy. But take heart all of you with a conscience, he and his ilk seem totally unaware that easy meat like themselves is generally some of the first to be eaten.

Smart people can definitely grow potatoes, but they are also capable of seeing beyond their own screen door. Unlike ITG.

Hysteria, from the ancient greek literally means "sadness of the womb". Think about it in that sense, it's despair over what is not there but should be there.

A lot of the pieces in the article certainly speak a semblance of truth, it's how they are stiched together into an indisputable conclusion that is both tiresome and troubling. Lunacy points us toward something that may be possible, but that possibility is never inevitable.

That's why Nassim Taleb's work on markets is interesting and also so difficult to really think through. The Black Swan is not what you are waiting for, it's the surprise unknown. And your success is not the effect of your own causality, since your own causality can never be defined. You are an intersection of limitless causalities. Otherwise known as Chance.

In response to the article's hyperbole (it could happen but the inevitability of the path is absurd), I would answer plainly and simply that Americans are going to have to spend less time at Walmart and more time involved in their own governance. Accountability, to one's self and to one's neighbors. That includes our global neighbors. Do you understand that a guy in China making $2000 a year who can read better than your neighbor across the street is making that iPod for you and that while you may feel the consolation of solipsistic revery, unless you own AAPL, since that's where the profits are going, with a cut to the Chinese Communist Party hack who is ushering the workers in China to work, then you are left with a compact music player and a currency that is going to find equilibrium with that Chinese worker. Your wealth appears to be on the rise when you listen to music. When you are unemployed, I can assure you that it is not on the rise. China is not a scapegoat, it's 300MM people controlled by 78MM CCP members controlling 1 billion extremely poor people who will work for next to nothing, banked by American and European multinationals, since capital flows to the highest return. I don't think Marx was correct, but we still don't really understand all of the facets that this flow of capital entails in a global economy.

What is evident is that, as througout history, there are those who benefitting handsomely from it. Maybe you have no say in this. Maybe you are in the same boat as your friend in China...

I've said this before and will keep repeating it. It's not the FED's fault. It's your fault. Take responsibility. Change it. That's where the Tea Party springs forth. The Tea Party is just one instance of it. If you can't get along with the Tea Party, then be a political entrepreneur, start up the next response...

New world order, Global government etc is hard to immagine. Until one takes a look at the European Union. An unelected executive of commisioners, unacountable to anybody enjoying fabulous tax free salaries, perks and pensions. A toothless elected body of MP`s to placate the electorate and perpetuate the illusion of democracy. A trial run?

The US is already having public discussions of ending Social Security payments to "greedy geezers." How can we fight all the wars our military industrial complex wants to fight if we pay money to feed useless eaters who can't even work any more? And how can we spend billions on new weapons systems if the money has been consumed by the disabled, the sick and indigent?

People died of starvation in German cities during the Weimar hyperinflation after their monthly pensions would no longer buy a single sandwich. Could it happen here? Sure, why not, if it were profitable enough for the right levels of society.

The key to recovery is dismantling our bloated military industrial complex and getting rid of those in government who scheme to acquire more territory to control (aka expanding the empire) rather than take care of those in need at home.

Oligarchies don't require conspiracies. However Mr. DeGraw has put together a lot of interesting facts and deserves credit for perceiving some vital connections between disparate actions and events.

I'm convinced oligarchies arise as an emergent characteristic of the inability of social institutions to accommodate problems associated with (somewhat paradoxically) biological altruism and its relationship to Dunbar's Number (a hypothetical 'natural human community size physically associated with cognitive limitations and the yattention economy.

Let me give you an hypothesis...

All group decisions must contend with balancing the interests of the individual vs the group...

This is an ancient issue... reflected in the old standard referred to as the "Tragedy of the Commons". In general we think of the "Right" as weighted towards the individual... and the "Left" towards the group. In truth decisions rest somewhere along that continuum...

In biological terms its the 'personal survival drive' vs 'biological altruism' (a group-oriented drive dependent on the limits and gradations of group identification)...

The problem is this: The survival instinct scales directly... but altruism does not!

(An easy way to look at this is this is why a Kennedy or a Kerry can be "Liberal", and still embrace tax dodges for the wealthy... and not fight 'hard enough' for minimum wage increases of single payer healthcare... they truly support them but won't fight as hard as a poor parent with uninsured children would if such people could ever be elected as members of Congress or other positions of power)...

This is a subtle but pervasive force over time... this slight shading of opinion and the willingness to 'fight' for a position... In SCALED social organisms (larger than Dunbar's Number) the RIght will have an advantage because its adherents are fighting both for their own interests AND their families... for the leadership of the Left... they may believe what they say... but they're fighting for an abstraction and sometimes against their own personal interests AND the interests of their immediate families.

P.S. I believe this is an ancient problem and actually forms the original basis of Authoritarianism. Mechanisms of self-governance are attempts to address these problems... We are way behind in making the "META-political" changes necessary.

The Commons-dedicated Account concept is an essential fundamental only now technically possible... its a libertarian construct for facilitating empowered association.

And look for more coming there on: The Individually-controlled/Commons-dedicated Account:

A self-supporting , Commons-owned neutral network of accounts for both political and charitable monetary contribution... which for fundamental reasons of scale must allow a viable micro-transaction (think x-box points for action in the Commons). The resultant network catalyzes additional functionality for co-ordination of other 'social energy' utilization. (If desired, It's also the most neutral and ultimately politically viable method for the public finance of elections.)

Maybe I'm wrong... but it's time to try something constructive. You won't get solutions coming from the 'powers-that-be'. And whether conspiracy or not... the end game is ugly. And David is absolutely right that the citizenry of this country (and of most other countries with ostensibly representative systems) have been asleep at the wheel... and led by leaders who've served themselves and their friends (tribes) better than their constituents.

Sean7k nails it above: Most important thing any of us can do is unhook from government dependence...get out of debt, invest in real assets and don't live enslaved to conventional, elitist wisdom, and prayer....it's our own distration and acquiescence interfacing with global powers of darkness and destruction that be that will do us in.

No virus is successful without a willing and weak host. We all need stronger emotional, spiritual, economic and political immune systems if we are to survive what's coming.....however it plays out.

"The operations in this region have essentially been a warm-up for much wider-ranging attacks against much stronger countries."

This guy assumes an overarching intelligence is driving world events.

He seeks to butress this delusion by listing headlines of every military related event of recent months as if such a compilation comprises insurmountable evidence of an unstoppable world conspiracy aimed at perpetual war. He ignores that that's what homo sapiens do best. And they seem to like it. They don't need any encouragement.

One positive thing I believe this latest version of the doomster doxology does, though, is induce introspection among a good many of us. That can lead to spiritual insight if you don't look out. If a large enough number of people began viewing the world through a spiritual lens we might become better people.

“There is however an overriding imperative for those at the top of the banking cartel to become extremely rich“. - wintermute

That “overriding imperative” is nurtured by corporate organization. Excessive greed has no meaning for corporations committed to the goal of maximizing profits. Those who support that goal are rewarded and promoted. Those who do not are pushed aside.

One way to maximize profit is to avoid liability, and pass off the social cost or collateral damage from their operations.

Similarly, a self-serving global military establishment aims for a parallel goal of full-spectrum global dominance regardless of any “collateral damage” to humanity and the planet.

It is more a confluence of institutional interests than a traditional “conspiracy”It is best thought of as racketeering by elite enterprises, instead of by criminal enterprises.

Although many of the activities may be considered criminal (embezzlement, fraud, money laundering, smuggling, murder), the insider elites are able to determine what is technically defined as illegal or criminal.

Sadly, the advantage of the human species to create social institutions for survival, also opens the door to create institutions that become Frankensteins of extinction.

In the past, many recognized the inherent danger posed by all institutions, including supposedly benevolent religious ones, especially once those institutions became self-serving. Thus government institutions were to be divided, religious ones restricted, militarization and standing armies avoided, financial institutions publicly controlled, and corporate charters limited in duration and scope. Furthermore, after WW2, even nation states were to be subject to agreed international standards of law (the flaw being that 5 nations could excuse themselves whenever convenient).

Corporate “freedom” has given rise to self-serving international cartels. Similarly, WW2 and the Cold War have given rise to a self-serving global military machine that appears beyond the control of any government.

we are like children in kindergarten. Why is the big bad wolf trying to eat little red riding hood? He is such a bad wolf. We're scarred.
The children never analyze why the the wolf sounds like mr. janitor and the LRRH sounds like Mrs. Teacher. And/or why the wolf and lrrh need those strings to move.
To analyze what IMF, BIS, WB do is equivalent to hypothesizing how nice it would be if the bad wolf ate his veggies instead of lrrh - pointless.
When do we become adults and start talking about the puppet masters (i.e. http://tinyurl.com/dfztye )that pull the strings behind the scenes? That's what I want to know.